


the phoenix or the flame

by isayyoucrazy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel, Time Turner (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-24 00:40:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30064017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isayyoucrazy/pseuds/isayyoucrazy
Summary: —got a secret, can you keep it?Hermione Granger has a secret: she's in love with two men, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, and she doesn't know which one she likes better. Maybe the gift of a Time-Turner in a life-or-death situation and a fresh start in 1971 will help her reach her decision. rated M for later chapters.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Sirius Black/Hermione Granger/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 4





	1. s.o.b (no, not being dramatic abt crying)

_September 13th,_ 1995

Hermione sits on her rickety bed in her small bedroom at 12 Grimmauld Place. She doesn’t want to go downstairs, for fear of embarrassing herself by blushing every time she caught her crush's eye.

Sirius Orion Black.

His initials are SOB, but he isn’t. He is a prankster, a Marauder, and Hermione's crush of two years. He’s also the only adult who treats her as an equal; everyone else refuses to let her into the Order meetings, which annoys her to no end. She’s the most mature teenager they'd ever met, and they’ve admitted it time and time again — so why won’t they let her listen in?

Logically, Hermione knows it’ll never work; he’s in his thirties, and she turns sixteen in less than a week. She isn’t even a legal adult yet.

Harry pokes his head into her room. "Hermione, come down. You've been holed up in here for _days,_ for Merlin's sake! It's almost your sweet sixteen; come partying with us!"

Ron's head appears too. "Yeah, 'Mione, come on. You haven't been out of the house for a week!"

Hermione shakes her head glumly. "You guys go ahead," she says, flopping backwards onto the bed and throwing her arm across her eyes. "I don't feel like it."

She knows she’s being cowardly, but what is she supposed to do? She has a crush on her best friend's _godfather,_ for crying out loud! It’s no wonder she doesn’t want to face anyone.

Suddenly, the entire house is at her door.

"Aww, come on, 'Mione!" Fred and George Weasley say in perfect unison.

"Wotcher, Hermione." Tonks. "You look terrible. You know what’ll fix that? A day out."

"Hermione Jean Granger, you get down here right this instant!" Molly's voice echoes around the house, and everyone jumps

Hermione sighs. "I really don't feel like it," she protests weakly.

Then the man of her dreams appears in her doorway, dressed in tight pants, a ripped black t-shirt, and a black leather jacket with numerous zippers.

 _Really, Hermione? Man of your dreams?_

"Please?" Sirius gives her his best puppy eyes. He had picked up on her feelings, and thought her quite a nice girl, with a good figure and a brain that actually worked. In fact, had she been legal, he’d have swooped in and risked his hide, as Molly Weasley would probably have given him the tanning of his life. He’d be in the doghouse for years if he dared lay hands on the Golden Girl.

Hermione really can’t say no to that adorable face, so she sighs and shoos everyone out of her room.

"Wear something fancy!" Ginny says, slipping in. She and Hermione have always been friends, but over the past year, they’ve become even closer. Hermione had confessed her crush on Sirius, and Ginny admitted that she'd been in love with Harry ever since she first saw him.

"I don't _do_ fancy," Hermione sniffs, snootily looking down her nose at the redhead. The girls both laugh, and Ginny pulls something out from behind her back and tosses it at Hermione.

"Try it on!" Ginny exclaims. Hermione drags her shirt over her head and steps out of her jeans. She doesn’t usually care what she wore, because to everyone else she is just nerdy Hermione Granger, know-it-all and bookworm extraordinaire.

Today, since she’s going out anyway, she wants to make Sirius see that she can clean up nicely. She steps into the pool of cloth on the floor and pulls it up. "Gin, can you zip me up?" she asks, turning around.

Ginny tugs the zipper up, and Hermione looks at herself in the mirror. The dress is red and knee-length, and it hugs the curves she had gained over the summer, which she typically hides underneath baggy shirts and loose pants. The colour complements her tanned skin, and her hair falls to the middle of her back in only slightly frizzy ringlets — much different than it had her first three years of school.

She turns and sees Ginny, who is dressed in a black pencil skirt that falls mid-thigh, and a flowing, white crop-top with long sleeves. She has on high heels that match the colour of her hair perfectly.

"Wow, Ginny, Harry's going to freak when he sees you!"

Hermione slips on a pair of black flats — she doesn’t trust herself to manage heels for the entire evening — and they head down the stairs together. They earn cat-calls from Harry, Remus, Tonks, and Sirius, which in turn earns an eye-roll from Mrs. Weasley.

"Looking good, girls!" Harry whistles appreciatively, although his eyes were fixed on Ginny.

Sirius gives Hermione a once-over. She has a great body, he has to admit, but she’s less than half his age. He’s middle-aged, scruffy, and a player. What would a young, pretty girl like Hermione want with a dog like him?

"Um, yes, indeed," he mumbles. Hermione's face falls, but she quickly replaces it with a grin. Ginny can tell it is fake, so she steps away from Harry and whispers in Hermione's ear.

"Let's go have fun, and you can flirt with some guys. Make him jealous."

Hermione brightens, and her grin becomes real and mischievous. She looks around. Everyone who’s going had dressed up: Tonks is wearing a simple white dress, the first dress Hermione has ever seen her in, and the guys all have on jeans and tight shirts. Ron had really grown up over the summer; he had filled out, a lot of his freckles had disappeared, and his face had lost most of the boyish chub.

She sidles over to him and looks up through her lashes. "Would you care to escort me, kind sir?" Hermione asks, holding her arm out. He takes it like a gentleman, and Molly watches the perfect duo with satisfaction.

"Aren't they wonderful together?" she asks proudly out of the corner of her mouth to the adults around her.

Sirius clenches his fists, but holds his tongue. It doesn’t do to get jealous. _Calm down,_ he tells himself. But he can’t. She’s just too perfect, and she _likes him_.

Remus observes Sirius; his fists are clenched tightly and he looks like he’s chewing the inside of his cheek. He knows that Sirius likes Hermione, and he knows that seeing her with the youngest Weasley boy is likely difficult. After all, Ron is her age, while Sirius is nearly twenty years her senior.

He likes Hermione too, but he can hide his feelings until Myna comes back.

And suddenly he remembers exactly what Myna had said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiii so uh,,, yeah, i'm posting yet aNoThEr multi-chap :p this one has quite a bit written, so i'll try to update regularly :) anyway, i'll post the first two chapters to get you started!! <3 hope you enjoy :')


	2. lost love (but not so lost)

_September 14th, 1995_

Not nearly for the first time in the past twenty years, Remus recalls Myna's words, from so long ago. _"One day, perhaps, you should give a girl the best present of all time. The chance to relive things that many have thought to be over and done with. The gift of time itself."_

Myna had been the twin sister of James. Remus, along with the other Marauders, had doted on her. James is very overprotective of his sister, even though she'd been sorted into Slytherin. It had taken a while to get over his petty, childish hatred of all Snakes, but he had finally seen that Myna is the same person she had always been; the same girl who had been with him through thick and thin. Myna had had to remind him that their own mother had been Slytherin, and then _Dorea_ had reminded him of that fact that he seemed so keen to forget.

He never quite understood how she had been Sorted into Slytherin — Myna is brave like a Gryffindor, loyal as a Hufflepuff, and clever like a Ravenclaw. She is, however, cunning like the house she had been sorted into, so he supposed the Sorting Hat had been correct in her placing.

She is her parents' treasure. Their darling.

Then, one day, Myna just... disappeared. Gone. No one had ever seen her again. Not that they hadn't searched.

Oh, how they’d searched!

Their darling Myna-bird. She had been flighty, always fluttering from place to place, but when she got to know people, she settled down. He and Sirius had been the first people she had trusted other than her brother.

And it is almost time to do what she had made them promise to do, all those years ago.

* * *

"Come on, 'Mione, he didn't say anything _bad_ about your dress," Ginny says. The youngest Weasley sits on her twin bed across from Hermione's, who is currently lying face-down in her pillow. They had come back early in the morning from a night of clubbing, and Hermione is moping because Sirius hadn't complimented her or done anything to give her the impression he thinks of her as someone other than his teenage godson’s, also teenage, best friend.

Hermione sits upright. "But he didn't say anything _good_ about it, either!"

Ginny gets up and plops down on Hermione's bed. "'Mione, do you think you could talk to Prof — Remus about your crush? I mean, he _did_ grow up with the man."

Hermione thinks about it. "I guess..." she says doubtfully. "But do you really think he'd listen and not mock me for liking a guy over twice my age?"

The redhead nods. "I think he would," she answers solemnly. "He listened — _really_ listens — when I went to him about Harry a couple years ago. If he listens to a second-year, he should listen to you."

"Thanks, Gin," Hermione says gratefully. "You're the best friend ever."

* * *

Hermione walks down the hall and pauses outside Professor Lupin's door. He hasn’t mentioned anything to her about them being on a first-name basis, so she continues to think of him as her professor.

She knocks softly. "Professor Lupin?"

Remus opens the door. "Hermione! What can I do for you?" He steps back, allowing her to venture inside.

"I was, um, wondering if you could talk to me about...something. I wouldn't want to bother you, so if you're busy — "

"Oh, no, I have plenty of time for my favourite student," he says. "Come right in."

Hermione looks around the room curiously. It is simple, with plain white walls, a few chairs, a desk, a window, and a bed. It’s decorated with a few framed literary quotes on the dresser and walls, which she immediately walks over to and reads.

_"I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be."_

_"Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face—I know it's an impossibility, but I cannot help myself."_

_"Come back. Even as a shadow, even as a dream."_

"These are my favourite quotes," Remus says quietly from Hermione's shoulder. "The ones that I thought most applied to my life."

"You lost a love?" Hermione asks.

His eyes grow dreamy. "Yes, I did. She was special to all of us Marauders, and we loved her as our extended family — Pack, if you will."

"What was her name? If you don't mind telling me, that is."

He looks into her eyes — so like _hers._ "Her name is Myna," he says in such a low voice that Hermione has to strain her ears to hear him. "Myna Altaira Potter."

"You mean, she was James's cousin or something?"

Remus shakes his head. "She was his sister, his twin."

Hermione is surprised. She'd never heard about this girl before. Harry had another aunt! "What was she like?"

Remus’ eyes rove over the young witch’s face. "She was compassionate, kind, intelligent... Merlin, but she studied hard. You're actually a bit like her."

 _Lie_.

"Really?" Hermione asks eagerly. "In what way?"

"Well, she was always in the library, studying or helping younger students. Sirius usually helped for money _and_ always complained about it, but Myna did it for free, and she genuinely seemed to enjoy it.

"Myna was pretty without even trying, with jet-black hair like her mother, and curls like her father, although slightly more tamed, and silver-grey eyes that are the feature of the Blacks. She got that from her mother, who was a Black before marrying Charlus Potter.”

Remus smiles sadly. "Every time Sirius or I are around you, it's like a blast from the past. You act so much like her... but you aren't her."

 _Lie_.

"And I don't suppose that you or Sirius are over her yet, are you? Now that I know about... Myna... I realise that Sirius isn't looking at me because he has a crush on me, too; it's because he thinks I look like his lost sweetheart."

She winces as she notes that she had inadvertently admitted to liking Sirius. She watches Remus closely and lets out a relieved breath when he doesn’t appear to have caught her secret.

"Actually, 'Mione, you see...Myna wasn't just _Sirius'_ sweetheart — she sort of belonged to all of us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here you go!! first two chaps, pls let me know what you think! i have a l o t planned for this story, but i take suggestions ^^;
> 
> also the quotes are from charles dickens, nicholas sparks, and euripides respectively.


	3. myna-bird

_"Actually, 'Mione... Myna wasn't just_ Sirius' _sweetheart — she sort of belonged to all of us."_

* * *

_September 14th, 1995_

Silence.

"Wait… you mean, you _all_ slept with her?" It’s hard for Hermione to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

Remus sighs and sits on the edge of his bed. He pats the space beside him, and Hermione crosses the room and perches next to him.

"She was never as close to Peter as she was to the rest of us, but she was friends with him. Although that's not saying much, because she was friends with everybody. And James… well, being his sister, she obviously didn't have _sex_ with him, because that’s incest and frowned upon even within Pureblood circles, but he comforted her if she had nightmares and they often slept in the same bed."

"Tell me more about her," Hermione begs, wanting to hear about the mysterious girl who had captured the Marauders’ hearts.

Remus laughs softly. "She was jealous of Myna because he always lavished Lily with attention until Myna was around," he recalls fondly. "His sister was his entire world — all of our worlds — and the girls of Hogwarts didn’t appreciate that, but _especially_ not Lily. She had been wooed by James ever since first year, and she got vicious because we were closer to Myna than we were to her. When James asked Lily if she was jealous about his relationship with Myna, Lily threatened to hex his balls off, permanently flatten his hair, turn his skin green and silver, and perpetually transfigure him into a girl. Poor guy was shaking in his boots by the time she'd finished ranting. In our sixth year, Lily kinda hated Myna, because she was James' sister and she was afraid Myna was more important to him, even though she wouldn’t admit that she liked James. The sneaky witch had convinced Jamie into asking a girl to Hogsmeade so he wouldn't get turned down again by Lily, and Lily didn't take that well.

"Myna was James's darling twin. He adored her. In his eyes, she could do no wrong. We met her and James on the train in our first year, and she always was way more mature than us, even though she was the younger twin. She could prank better than all of us combined, though.

"Myna was sorted into Slytherin, and, though we protested a lot, she made a wonderful addition to their ranks. She was cunning and clever, and always had the best ideas. Like I said, she wiggled her way into the Marauder inner circle, and she became our fifth Marauder. James hurt her a lot for the first few months, and she found comfort in the arms of her fellow housemates. We all hated Snakes, and it took a while for us to see that there was a kind, compassionate girl hurting behind that cold facade — and that it was all because of her brother.

"It took Sirius the longest to get to know the real Myna. He didn't like her very much to begin with. He hated all Slytherins, even his best mate's twin sister. This continued until he pranked her in DADA in second year. He jinxed her wand in the middle of a fight, and she ended up in the hospital wing with three broken ribs. James beat him bloody for that, but Sirius finally got over his childish hatred of Slytherins — or Myna, at least. He got to know her, and realised that she wasn’t like her housemates.

"She was the one who gave us the idea for the map. Messrs Myna-bird, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. We thought it was weird to have her be referred to as a 'Messr,' but she says it was dumb if it read 'Messrs and Miss.’ She was an Animagus, too — a beautiful eagle. We never figured out exactly when she began working on the transformation, but apparently it only took her a couple months, whereas it took us nearly three years. Padfoot thought it would be funny to have her nickname be Myna-bird because her form is a predator.

"Myna was fiercely protective of us Marauders, even Peter, and hexed the girls who flirted with us, especially her brother, only excluding Lily in seventh year. She made friends with Snape and Lucius Malfoy, but always spent equal amounts of time with Slytherins and Gryffindors alike. She was the only girl in her year in Slytherin, so the boys all catered to her every whim. She was their angel, their friend, their goddess. She also encouraged a lot of inter-house unity. She was so publicly affectionate with us all, Slytherins and Gryffindors were finally able to… definitely not _stand_ one another, but we could be in the same room without hexing them. For the most part.

"She could take on Bellatrix Black, Lucius Malfoy, Snape, and two professional Aurors all together in a duel without breaking a sweat or being at all injured. That was all by the time she was in her fifth year.

"Myna was the best thing that ever happened to us," Remus finishes, sighing. "She kept us out of major trouble, and also corrected our mistakes. She was our light in our tunnel of darkness. And when she left, we all moped for months; years even, in my case."

Hermione feels so bad for this man, who has lost the love of his life, yet who puts on a brave face and pretends nothing is wrong. She’s a bit overwhelmed by all the information, so she hugs Remus and leaves, shutting the door behind her with an almost inaudible click.

She goes back to her room and finds Ginny asleep. Had she really been listening to Remus that long? Her question is answered when she casts a quick _Tempus._ It’s much later than when she’d left.

She yawns and climbs into bed, her mind whirling with the information. She wishes she could have met Myna. _Is she dead or missing?_ She'd forgotten to ask Remus. Maybe she can get up early and ask Sirius.

Remus had implied that Myna had either left or been taken. He had not said, 'when she died,' which leads Hermione to hope that the witch Remus loves is still alive.


End file.
